


A Cup of Coffee

by greerwatson



Category: Forever Knight
Genre: Episode: s02e01 - Killer Instinct, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-12
Updated: 2011-09-12
Packaged: 2018-05-21 00:34:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6031636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greerwatson/pseuds/greerwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Nick languishes in jail, Schanke does his best to impress the new boss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cup of Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the Dead Dog Party after FK Fic Fest 2011 to Havoc the Cat’s prompt, “Amanda Cohen is sharp, perceptive, and utterly loyal to the people that work for her. What is it that she’s noticed—about Natalie, Schanke, and Nick—that she’s never let on?”

It was a mocha hazelnut decaf caramel macchiato with whipped cream and cinnamon on top.  This, of course, was assuming she hadn’t forgotten some detail in the long description Schanke had rattled off.  Cohen looked at it dubiously.  Each day’s offering was ever more elaborate.  The notion that she might just prefer your regular, basic _coffee_ had obviously never occurred to him.

Through the window into the squad room she could see him seating himself at his desk.  She was sure he still had that anxious look he hoped to hide.  Well, she couldn’t actually see it from this angle; but she was sure it was there.  Some time each day (or pretty well each day) and sometimes twice (or more than that!), the portly detective would assert his certainty of his partner’s innocence.  Whether it crept into conversation at the water cooler or got declaimed in the middle of the squad room, no one was allowed any suspicion that Schanke’s solidarity was less than complete.  In Cohen’s opinion, people were being quite remarkably tolerant; but then, everyone understood.  You backed your partner.  She herself had tempered her initial irritation at his brown-nosing the boss with a new measure of respect for his loyalty.  It didn’t make the cup of coffee any smaller, but it sweetened it more than the caramel swirl on top.  Whether his trust would prove misplaced was another matter.

Cohen ... had her doubts.  She knew neither detective except through their files, a phone call to Joe Stonetree when she received their transfer papers, and the few short weeks they’d been at the Nine-Six before it all blew up.  Could Knight be a vigilante cop bent on cleaning up the streets?  She couldn’t be as sanguine about the outcome as Schanke purported to be. 

She looked at the extra-large cup on her desk.

At least with DNA tests there’d be proof positive to clear or damn the man. 

Meanwhile, Knight languished downstairs while everyone else tried to work as if life were normal.  Normal ... with a cop behind bars in the basement! 

Increasingly, Cohen doubted her decision to keep him here.  Although it spared him the Don Jail, Holding had never been intended to house anyone for weeks.  She didn’t envy the custody sergeant.  It was a blight on the precinct.  Everyone knew Knight was down there, prisoner in the dungeon. 

Hardly anyone went to visit him.  True blue solidarity still held them silent in public; but Knight was new at the Nine-Six, they didn’t know him, and the tests were still pending.   _You know your friends_ , Cohen thought, _if they visit you in jail._

And that was telling in itself:  the only one from the Two-Seven who had come by was Stonetree.  He’d spoken to her before going down, and again after the visit:  Knight hadn’t said much, he informed her, and didn’t want him to come again.  Was it embarrassment keeping away the others from the Two-Seven, unwilling to spy on a fellow cop’s humiliation?  Or was it more?

One of the pathologists from the Coroner’s Office came daily, looking bravely cheerful as she ventured down, and damp-eyed on the way up.  Cohen could fill the blanks, and thought they’d make a pretty couple—assuming Knight to be cleared, of course.

Schanke visited his partner daily.  (Twice daily.   _Thrice_ daily.)  He rarely stayed long; and Cohen suspected that Knight sent him off with a flea in his ear.  Protecting him?

She’d had partners good and partners bad; but she’d never suffered a partner who'd _gone_ to the bad.  Would Schanke ask for a transfer?  Should she suggest it?  She didn’t want him to think that _he_ was under suspicion of involvement.  (He was, though.  There was no way I.A. didn’t have their eye on him.)

Cohen pried the lid off the cup of coffee.  The styrofoam had kept it hot:  there was a little curl of steam bursting at the side of the whipped cream.  The smell rose rich; and she picked up the cup and sipped the heat carefully.

Oh, yes.  Schanke was worried.  No doubt about it.


End file.
